“There is a whole universe of things about you I don’t know, but that in itself tells me volumes.

“In ordinary life, you are friendly; in bed, you are a fireball; but in anything that touches any deep part of you, you are an ice maiden. Sexually liberated, but emotionally frigid.”

She stared out the window with such intensity that I thought the glass might melt. I shut up. You can only go so far with a monolog.

After some miles she said, “You aren’t blind.”

“I’m a lot like that, myself.”

“I know, Ian. I’m not blind, either. But we get into habits, and act out parts we have become comfortable in.” She was speaking with metronymic precision. When she joked around, her Hispanic accent sometimes became thick. When she was thoughtful, it almost disappeared. Clarity of speech was an index of her mood.

“I tend to dominate situations,” I said.

“You are a master of understatement.”

“And you don’t like being dominated.”

“Not at all.”

“So you decided to show me who was boss.”

She nodded.

“You knew I was hooked on you. So you used Will for leverage, to put me in my place. To demonstrate the precise length of my leash.”

“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t calculated. It was an impulse.”

“So it wasn’t planned – it comes to the same thing.”

After a moment, she shrugged half agreement.

“But it didn’t work out. I wasn’t the only one who was hooked.”

Raven laughed harshly. “That is one way of looking at it.”

“How else could you look at it?”

“I could say that you answered my challenge in a way I could not resist.”

“Oh, come on!”

Raven looked puzzled. Our conversation was losing its central thread. Somehow, we had stopped talking in a shared language, and I did not know when it had happened. She said, “I can’t believe you underestimate yourself.” She stared out the window again, her face lovely and opaque. Speaking into the glass, she said, “What do you think we are?”

“I think we are two domineering people trying to fall in love, and trying at the same time to see who will end up as boss.”

That amused her. Her view was obviously different. She said, “Who is going to win?”

“I hope it will end in a draw. An equal partnership.”

“You know me a little,” she admitted, “but you don’t know yourself at all. Why do you stay with me?”

“I like you.”

Her eyes flew wide. “Like me!” she cried out. “Just like me?”

I laughed out loud. She could no more have helped that reaction, than a wet cat could keep from spitting. more tomorrow

According to the train schedule, we passed back through Marseille at 4:58 AM. I had planned to watch for any passengers who got on, but I didn’t wake up until a middle-aged Italian woman with her two grandchildren invaded our compartment at St.-Raphael. She told us in bad French that she was returning to Milan from visiting her daughter, and that her daughter would be coming along in two weeks to pick up the children. She scolded the children in a strident voice, threw open the train window and leaned out to shout across the platform to her family, then offered Raven and me cookies when she gave them to her grandchildren. I took one. It had been a long time since the picnic on the beach.

Raven spoke no French. She looked puzzled at first, trying to follow a clumsy conversation in a third language, engaged in by two people who both spoke it badly. Eventually she gave up and stared out the window.

I slipped my bare foot up beside her on the seat and nuzzled it against her hip. She looked irritated at first, but she finally put her hand on my ankle. I blew her a kiss, a brief pursing of the lips that brought an equally brief smile. She said, “Sorry, Ian. I’m not at my best when I’m short on sleep.”

“Me either. We can talk if we remain circumspect.” Raven looked sideways at our compartment mates; the woman had settled back to knit in silence and the children were mercifully asleep. I went on, “She doesn’t speak English. It is always the first question I ask, bad as my French is. But she would probably know a few words, so talk around things.”

“Where are we going?”

“Nice. It is close to Marseille in case we have to go back quickly, and it is the gateway to the Riveira. Big yachts, blue waters, topless beaches.”

She shot me fiery look. Raven did not like being teased.

I settled in against the window, with one eye on Raven and the other on the russet semi-desert outside. Past St.-Raphael the train hugs the coast and the Mediterranean is in view most of the time. I said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about yesterday. I’m not too happy with either of us.”

Raven nodded toward the grandmother and asked, “Is this the time to discuss it?”

“Why not? We’ve been more intimate in a public setting.”

She actually blushed. I said, “When you apologized to Will, you said you had been jealous. I think that was only the least part of what was going on in your mind.”

“How the hell do you know what was going on in my mind!”

“I don’t, of course, but I know what was going on in mine. Now I do, that is. Then I was just reacting. I think you were just reacting, too.”

I paused for comment, but she just shrugged. I went on, “I think you were jealous, but at the bottom of it all, I think what happened was a challenge to me.”

“That’s clear enough, Sigmund.”

“Not a sexual challenge, Raven. A much deeper challenge hidden within a sexual challenge.”

Our compartment mate’s eyes dodged furtively sideways and her whole shapeless body seemed to come alive with listening. She might not understand much English, but she knew “sexual challenge”.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Raven said. “How can you guess what I think.”

“After two months of enforced intimacy? Come on, Raven. I know a bare minimum about your family, less about your past, and you won’t even commit yourself about what kind of art and music you like. There is a whole universe of things about you I don’t know, but that in itself tells me volumes. more tomorrow

“Keep Raven safe.”

“That is my first priority.”

I caught my pack in my left hand, cradling my injured right and said, “Come on, Raven. We have to run. We’ve got second class tickets.”

I started off at a half trot, heading back down the side of the train to the gray-striped second class coaches. Raven was caught off guard, and came stumbling after. Will was left looking foolish. Raven snapped, “Ian, what are you doing?” Then the train’s brakes gave a burst of air and the doors started to close. I tossed my pack in and caught the edge of the closest one, motioned Raven aboard, and followed. The train had already started moving; we waved to Will as we passed.

“Of all the clumsy . . .,” Raven began, but I cut her off.

“Later. I’ll explain later. Right now, let’s get settled before our visitor comes.”

“What visitor?”

I was already moving down the aisle. Second class cars have six-passenger compartments. These were curtained and unlighted, but when I opened the doors there was enough light to see into them. Most of the occupants were sleeping, or trying to. I found what I wanted on the third try, and motioned Raven in. She started to object that the previous compartment had been empty.  I hustled her in anyway, and tossed my pack up into the overhead rack. She stood in angry indecision. I tossed her pack up and gestured to a seat. She sat down, furious, but unwilling to make a scene in a compartment full of half-sleeping strangers. I took the only remaining place, slumped down, and braced my feet on the opposite seat.

We sat in silence. Raven was still angry; I was just waiting. Then the door slid back again and the businessman who had sprinted after us at the last moment, looked in. I said, “Sorry, old chap. ‘Fraid the place is full.”

He just looked at me, then closed the door and moved on. I caught Raven’s eye and said, “That visitor.” Her eyes got very wide. I nodded and said, “We’ll talk later. For now, the idea is that we can’t fall asleep. We’ll watch each other for dozing, and stay ready to move fast.”

Chapter Twelve

As it happened, it was not all that hard to stay awake. I only had to lower my hand into my lap whenever I started to doze and the throbbing was more effective than caffeine. Thinking helped, too. I kept thinking of what would have happened to all those tendons if Skinny’s knife had cut just a little deeper. Whenever Raven’s head nodded, I kicked her in the leg. Maybe harder than was strictly necessary. I still wasn’t happy with her.

When the train slowed for Avignon, I put my foot against Raven’s leg and pressed gently. Her eyes met mine, and I silently mouthed, “Be ready.” She nodded. I waited until we were fully stopped, then rose, slid the door open and stepped out into the aisle. I stretched, scratched, and yawned; the man with the newspaper was not in the aisle, nor peeking out of a compartment. If he had been, I would have gone to the W.C. and tried again at Livron. I stepped back into the compartment, ignoring the muttered complaints of our fellow travelers, tossed Raven her pack, and grabbed mine. We reached the platform just as the train started to move. Whether he saw us get off, I could not tell. Whether he cared, I did not know. The windows of the train were opaqued mirrors in the light of the platform.

Ten minutes later, the southbound train for Nice pulled in. We found an empty compartment and stretched out to sleep. more tomorrow

Will reached over the seat to nudge me awake when we reached the outskirts of Nimes. I shook the sleep out of my eyes and told Will the last thing that had been on my mind when I drifted off. I was leaving the automatic with him, to hold for me. When we were in immediate danger, I had wanted it handy, but carrying a concealed weapon around Europe is just plain crazy. France isn’t the wild west; it isn’t even Tulsa, Oklahoma. The French take a dim view of people with unregistered guns. Possession could lead to a long stay in a small, steel room.

I unkinked painfully and crawled out of the back seat. Will and Raven got the packs while I went to the ticket window. The train station was nearly deserted at three in the morning. There were a few kids scattered around, sprawled in the corners or stretched out on top of sleeping bags with their heads pillowed on their packs, catching a free night of sleep while they waited – or pretended to wait – for their trains to come in. I bought two tickets to Valence, the two more from Avignon to Nice. I stuffed the second pair in my jeans and rejoined Will and Raven.

Raven reached out and I took her hand. Then she smiled oddly and took Will’s hand also. She said, “I want to apologize to both of you about today; yesterday, I mean. Sometimes I’m pretty much of a bitch, and I get jealous if I am ignored.”

Will smiled and said, “Who could ignore you?”

“You and Ian did.”

“We were just catching up on each other’s lives,” Will said.

“I know. That’s why I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean to play you against each other.”

I didn’t say anything. I was surveying the platform for anyone who looked suspicious. It seemed to me that there was a little truth in Raven’s apology, and a great deal more of deception, but this was no time to discuss it.

In the distance, the train was coming. It’s one burning eye lit up the night, and there was a slight trembling of the concrete platform. A slender man with close cropped gray hair, a rumpled business suit, and a newspaper stuffed under his arm came out of the station. He was followed by three kids who were struggling into their oversized packs and shaking the sleep from their eyes. The kids had been here before us. The man had not. He had come from the direction of the parking lot. He was probably a local businessman on his way to Lyon or Paris. Probably. But he could also have followed us here by automobile.

If you are going to be paranoid, it makes no sense to go half way. I smiled at Raven, and memorized the man’s face while looking past her shoulder.

The train came in with a whoosh that sent dry leaves and candy wrappers swirling about the platform. I caught Will’s hand and said, “Thanks.”

“Any time, Ian. You know that. But how do you keep falling into these things?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” I grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll miss you.”

“Keep Raven safe.”

“That is my first priority.” more tomorrow

My eyes were growing heavy. The pain was receding. I was going back to those long rides home from St. Cloud.

Then the scene changed to nightmare.

There had been one ride I had missed. I had stayed with friends that night so I wouldn’t miss an important baseball game. My parents and my sister Sharon had gone to St. Cloud to see a movie. Coming home, my father lost control of the car.  It plowed into a ditch and caught fire. Father had escaped, taking Sharon with him. My mother had never made it out.

That night had been the end of my childhood. My father had been driving drunk. Again. While the matter was still under investigation, he took his jeep and canoe and went north. To Canada, I suppose. We never saw him again.

Now that memory caught me unaware, sliding in on the moist Mediterranean wind. I was shaking and one sob broke out, almost like a hiccough. I cut it off. This was a pain I didn’t share with anyone; not even Raven; not even Will.

Raven looked back over the seat and said, “Are you all right?”

“Sure. I just hit my hand when I moved.”

She turned forward again. I stared out the back window at the anonymous car headlights, which might be enemies, probably were strangers, and certainly were not friends.

#          #          #

We drove through Martigues, the “Venice of France”. It was supposed to be a lovely village, but at 2 AM, who could tell. The flat sheen of Barre Lagoon was like a dull mirror in the moonlight off to the right. The opposite side was a modernistic nightmare of shipping and industrial silhouettes.

Will said, “Are you sure this is wise, or necessary? I feel like a fool.”

“Are you thinking about what you will tell your boss?”

“Well, yes; frankly, I am.”

“Tell him you put us both on the train for Paris, but I wasn’t willing to travel directly out of Marseille and insisted that you drive us to Nimes instead. Tell them that I was afraid Davis and his buddy would sneak on the train with us if we left from the St. Charles station. Every word will be true.”

The main line from Paris follows the valley of the Rhone southward to Avignon where it splits. One branch goes east through Marseille and on toward Italy. The other branch goes west through Nimes and on to Spain. We were crossing from one branch to the other before heading north.

“Where are you really going?”

“We haven’t discussed it. I have an immediate destination in mind, but I won’t tell you. Then you can say with a clear conscience that you don’t know.”

“Great! I’m sure they will understand your thinking if they ever hear the full story.”

I didn’t like the bitterness in Will’s voice, or the way he had so easily and quickly slipped into the habit of referring all decisions to his superiors. I said, “There is no reason for them to ever hear it.”

We passed through Arles, crossed the Rhone, and bored northwestward through the darkness. Raven was asleep and I was beginning to drift off. I pulled the clip, emptied the chamber, placed the loose cartridge back in the clip, replaced the clip, lowered the hammer and locked the safety. Then I slept. more tomorrow

Chapter Eleven

By the time Will came back, it was past midnight. There was a flight from Paris, with connections for New York and then San Francisco, leaving at one PM. “There is a train leaving for Paris in an hour,” Will added. “You could make it easily.”

I said to Raven, “It’s up to you, but either way, there is no turning back.”

She smiled. “I’m staying. I’m not finished with Europe yet, or with you.”

“What are you two talking about?”

I said I would explain in the car. Will carried my pack; Raven carried her own along with the cardboard box holding holster and ammunition. I walked with my arms crossed, ostentatiously carrying my injured hand across my chest so I could conceal my left hand and the .45. The gear went into the boot, Raven rode shotgun, and I squeezed into the back to watch behind us as Will pulled away.

“Where to?”

“The train station,” I said and explained what we had in mind. Will did not agree. He thought Raven should head home. He and Raven argued while I kept a watch out the back window.

Midweek and past midnight, Marseille was still alive. The drive up la Canebiere and Blvd. D’Athenes was a kaleidoscope of images; great trees black above the street lights, revelers, streetwalkers, and an occasional tourist looking nervous, Disneyesque, and out of place. A dangerous city at night, I had been told. It had certainly proved so for Raven and me, but I was unhappy to be leaving it before I had really had time to know it.

Kids with their backpacks were sprawled on their sleeping bags on the high steps outside Gare St. Charles as Will circled up to the parking lot. Raven and I waited in the car. Three other cars had rolled into the parking lot with us. I watched the two that had parked and worried about the one that had circled and exited again. It might have parked down below out of sight. I didn’t like being caught in the cramped back seat, but I could hardly lean up against the fender in the parking lot of a busy train station with a gun in my hand.

Eventually, Will came back with a handful of train schedules.  He pulled out and I watched to see if anyone was following. We soon had a half dozen new sets of headlights behind us. I gave up. In the darkness, I couldn’t tell one car from another. I used a flashlight to study the schedules while I devised a plan of action.

Will drove skillfully through the streets of Marseille. Soon we were out of the city and crossing the marshy delta of the Rhone. He headed down the shoreline road past la Couronne before heading up to Martigues and the Barre Lagoon. We had all four windows open, and the warm, moist, Mediterranean air swirled through the car. Raven and Will were silent. There was no sound but the wind, the motor humming, and the occasional swish of a passing car. I leaned against the right hand door and watched out the back and side windows with the automatic cradled in my lap. I might have been lulled to sleep if it had not been for the throbbing in my hand.

There is a feeling in a night drive that is like no other feeling. The sound of humming tires induces it; the warm heaviness of the air, the darkness beyond the car, and the tiny, friendly lights from the dash make it complete. It is a child’s feeling. Drivers catch the edge of it, but to know it fully you have to be in the back seat, insulated from responsibility. It is a form of time travel. It will send you back to those days when your rode home, half asleep, stretched out in the back seat while your parents conversation dwindled to a meaningless buzz and the thickness of the air was so palpable that it slid in and out of your throat like oil.

My eyes were growing heavy. The pain was receding. I was going back to those long rides home from St. Cloud.

Then the scene changed to nightmare. more tomorrow

It was a new idea for Raven. She asked the obvious questions.  “What makes you think they can’t trace me here in Europe. I can’t even go to the police for help anywhere but Spain or England because I don’t speak the languages. I would be more helpless than ever.”

“No. Take my word for it, because I’ve done it. Once you leave Marseille you can go anywhere in Europe without leaving a trail. Border crossings are no problem. They just look at your passport and hand it back to you. They don’t even attempt to record the millions of people who go from country to country every day. If you pay with cash, there is no record of where you have gone or what you have done. Stay away from the Holiday Inn. Live in youth hostels, small cheap hotels, or campgrounds, and you can go underground easily. I think it is the safest thing for you to do.”

She smiled slowly. “With you?”

“With me.”

“Ulterior motives?”

“Tons of them.”

“Then I’ll do it!”

#          #          #

My hand was beginning to throb. If Skinny had cut a little deeper, he would have severed all those tendons and I would be heading for a hospital and reconstructive surgery. It was not a pleasant thought.

I said, “You’ll have to pack for me,” and sent Raven forward.  Beyond the main cabin was the door to the W.C., and beyond that was the forecastle. Will and I had completed it with two pipe bunks, but we never slept there. It was packed full of personal gear and boxes of canned goods. Raven brought back the cardboard box marked camping.

“Get out both packs.” They were internal frame rucksacks, sturdy and small enough to squeeze overhead in a train or bus. In went two down sleeping bags stuffed inside rolled up Ensolite pads, a tent, two rain parkas, a spare pair of jeans, shirt, underwear, and socks for me, a packet of maps and guidebooks, a tiny packet with soap and razor, a coil of nylon line and packet of miniature clothespins, and two small towels.

When Raven had finished, the packs were still half empty. She said, “Is that all?”

“We need to buy you one more pair of jeans and shirt, and maybe replace those sandals with something more sturdy. Other than that, this is all we’ll be carrying.”

I had her slip into Will’s pack and adjusted the straps to her. Then I showed her how to remove the backrest above the port transom. There was a locked secret compartment; I gave her the combination and she pulled out a slim money belt.

“Raven,” I said as I zipped it open and counted the contents, “you have to understand the ground rules. I have three thousand dollars American. By hitchhiking, staying in youth hostels and campgrounds, and never eating in restaurants I had planned to stretch that over several months. A typical pair of tourists would go through it in less than a week. You have to be willing to do things my way or we will run out of money.”

“I can do that.”

“You say you can, but I saw what you paid for those clothes.”

“They were reasonably priced.”

“To you; by the standards you are used to. Not by the new standards you have to learn. For the next few weeks, you are going to deliberately become a street person. Are you ready for that?”

She thought about it. “I guess so. I have to be.”

“No, you don’t. You can fly home.”

” ‘Into the lion’s mouth.’ Quoting you.”

“I think you are safer with me. But if you go with me and can’t live like I live, you won’t be able to back out. There won’t be enough money to get home. You’ll have to go to another consulate, call home, and wait for money to be sent. If you are going to back out, it had better be now.”

She answered by leaning over and kissing me lightly on the lips. more tomorrow